


These are the Fables

by Glinda



Category: Merlin (BBC)
Genre: F/F, Lady of the Lake - Freeform, Mythology - Freeform, Post-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-03-19
Updated: 2011-03-19
Packaged: 2017-10-17 02:59:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/172203
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glinda/pseuds/Glinda
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Lay down in glory, you're not alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	These are the Fables

**Author's Note:**

> Written for merlinfemfest back in November for la esmerelda. I was intrigued by the mention of Freya/Nimueh, and thought, given the contradictory legends around the Lady of the Lake it might be quite fun to play with that. I’ve tried to make it a hopeful story… Thanks to such_heights for the short notice beta.

_There was a druid girl called Freya, who suffered a terrible injustice and paid a worse price in consequence. Her fate was delayed a little by crossing paths with a young sorcerer called Merlin, he would be the most powerful of his kind in centuries yet not even he could save her. He knew not the sacred ceremonies for the dead of either old or new religions, so laid her to rest in a burning boat on a nearby lake and grieved her and his failure for a while. Here Merlin and Freya’s paths diverged, his to glory and hers to death and her name fell out of all knowledge._

  
Freya was a druid and believed certain words needed to be said over the dead to ensure their safe passage to the next world. Instead she was given the rites she would have given a Viking fallen in battle, so it seemed fitting that when she awoke she found a sword at her side. She is no warrior, but the sword feels right in her hand as soon as she lifts it and for the first time in a very long time she no longer feels afraid. The sword is not of the nature of swords, but of magic and it passes on its history, purpose and destiny into her safekeeping. She in turn lays claim to the role of its guardian, keeping Excalibur safe from falling into the wrong hands, whoever those may be.

  
The next time she breaks the surface of the Lake, Freya is long forgotten, and those who see her will call her the Lady of the Lake and be right to fear her. The Lady of the Lake breathes just as well underwater as above and guards Excalibur fiercely and forever.

  
~

  
All lakes are one lake in their way and the water remembers, so travel between is possible to those who know how. Freya has not yet mastered the trick but there have been many who have visited her in her domain. Some are lonely maidens drowned long ago; others are of the fair folk seeking mischief alone. Even the Sidhe make regular incursions, seeking to steal Excalibur away for their own nefarious schemes.

  
Dead sorceresses are altogether less common. Freya’s experience with sorceresses has been limited but memorable in all the wrong ways, so she is naturally suspicious of anything that Nimueh offers her. Instead Nimueh makes her no offers or promises, instead she asks her help. Nimueh requests that Freya joins her in the battle to come, fights by her side as her champion. After all, only a mighty warrior can wield Excalibur. It is not a conventional seduction but one that appeals to Freya more than any offers of power could ever manage. A chance to banish all her fears.

  
It doesn’t harm Nimueh’s cause that she is very beautiful, her skin soft and her embrace warm when Freya has been cold for so long. She remembers the advice given to her by one of the Sidhe who made her home in Llyn-y-Van-Bach and, rare among her tribe, had fallen in love with a mortal and frames her agreement in another’s words.

  
“I will help thee. I will stand by thy side, fight loyally for your cause and love you with all of my heart, on one condition. If you ever kill three innocents through no just cause, both I and Excalibur will return to our lake and those on which you wish harm will ever slip through your grasp.”

  
On solid ground once more, it is Excalibur that steadies her steps, and from the first skirmish, the sword feels right in her hands. She moves with a confidence and ease she never knew in life and feels Nimueh’s pride and appreciation of her skills warmer on her skin than any sun. Naïve she may be but Freya is not blinded by love; she understands that blood must be spilled to win their cause yet increasingly she also understands that her lover was long ago consumed by her desire for revenge. It is a slow and sad road; as Freya can only watch and offer counsel as the world twists around Nimueh. Each of the three lives seems to take a greater toll on Freya than it does on Nimueh, however much Nimueh protests her sorrow to Freya afterwards for having ignored her warnings. On the third death Nimueh looks to Freya, her face torn between satisfaction and rage, and Freya finds herself relieved to go. There will be time enough to grieve the woman she caught glimpses of, whose power and skill was twisted up and sullied by revenge and to rage about those who set her on this path. As sure as the tide, Freya leaves the place on that very moment, taking only Excalibur with her, and returns to her lake.

  
When she grows tired and hungry, the way mortals do, a sword serves surprisingly well as a crutch. She draws strength from it and is certain that it feels the call of their lake as strongly as she does. Certainly the sword seems lighter than should be possible the last few yards before they plunge back into the water that was once their prison but is now their refuge.

  
Every time Nimueh thinks she has Arthur in her reach he slips through her grasp, never more easily than with Excalibur in his hand. As for Merlin, not even Morgana’s tree can bind him forever, so Freya thinks his favour well and truly repaid.

  
~

  
There are stories that have grown up around the lake, that it has healing powers or that it can break enchantments. So it is here that King Olaf brings his beloved daughter, by now driven half to distraction by the enchantment that falsely bound her heart to Arthur’s. While her father and his men keep guard or hunt, Vivian bathes in the lake, though not with good grace – whatever enchantment she is under she is still at heart herself. As diametrically different as they are, Freya finds the exceedingly spoilt princess strangely fascinating. Her own ability to breathe underwater is equally fascinating to Vivian, who calls her mermaid and demands to keep her, but Freya always slips maddeningly through her fingers; she is always hard to catch.

  
It takes time and patience, considerable teasing and eventually giving up on being subtle about seducing Vivian, before Freya ends up with an armful of princess. She tells Vivian afterwards that it was the only way to shut her up, but Vivian merely demands a repeat performance and Freya decides that this is officially the most fun she’s ever had breaking a curse. A recovered Vivian remains a spoilt little madam a lot of the time and Freya still has no concept of deference. Yet somehow between the underwater kissing and the long and, mostly, good-natured arguments they become something like friends.

  
Vivian makes a better Queen than most people expected. Sometimes her laws are pointless or capricious, but increasingly they are sensible and just. Once a season she makes a pilgrimage to the lake where ‘her curse was lifted’ to consult with the one advisor she knows will always stand up to her, tease her and assure her that she’s right only when she truly believes it.

  
Theirs is an unconventional friendship but Freya treasures it as she has few others in her life and knows she will miss Vivian deeply when she is gone.

  
~

  
There is a body of water, surrounded by trees close at hand and hills more distantly. The shore was once shingle but time has worn it almost to sand. There is a young man upon the shoreline, knee deep in water and watching her closely. He looks shocked but accepting at her unlikely appearance; much that he thought he knew has changed and shifted beneath him recently, she is certain.

  
“Arthur,” she greets him. A statement rather than a question, she needs no visions or knowledge of destiny to identify the reincarnated royal. The very land calls out to him, welcoming him home.

  
She presents him with the sword as she has done so many times before. His face is ever changing, but the same soul remains underneath. Albion has called her champion and he has answered as always. There is much Freya could tell him, so many warnings that he might or might not heed. Instead all she tells him is, “use it well.”

  
He nods seriously and turns to return to the shore.

  
“Who are you,” he asks, looking back at her, “who were you before you were charged with this task. I’ve met water nymphs and selkies but you’re nothing like them. Were you mortal once?”

  
Mortal, he asks, not human. She was mortal once, and human, and a monster also. A panther with wings, a seal that could walk on land as a human woman, a sorceress of great and vengeful power, a spoiled princess who found her place, a druidic priestess, a lost little girl. She is Nimueh, she is Vivian, she is Ellen Douglas, mostly she is Freya; she is a hundred other women whose name and story was lost to history and memory so that Arthur’s name might survive. She gives none of those names to this boy, who has taken every other name from her, though he doesn’t know it.

  
“I am the Lady of the Lake,” she tells him, “I give unto you the sword Excalibur in your time of need and when you no longer have need of it I will take it back and keep it safe until it is needed again. My tale is not yours to know.”

  
She turns on her heel and returns to her watery rest, leaving the boy and the sword alone on the shore.


End file.
